


Give and take

by Alayne_StoneColdFox



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon - Book, F/M, Somewhat Fluffy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-31 03:39:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3963007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alayne_StoneColdFox/pseuds/Alayne_StoneColdFox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa loves gifts, and thanks to Petyr Baelish she is used to receiving them. But what happens when she wishes for something from him and he is unwilling to indulge her?</p><p>Book-Canon as of the latest TWOW excerpt: Set at the gates of the moon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Give and take

There was not much that I wanted for these days.

Back in Winterfell I had wished for so many things. I wanted to go to Kings Landing, and wear the most opulent dresses, golds and silks in all colours, anything but dull grey and thick fabrics. I wanted feathered fans and jewels and perfumes. I used to plan court balls with Jeyne for hours, and our fantasies would be the most elaborate of affairs. I could remember one even now, set in a garden. I didn't know what the gardens at Kings landing would have looked like then, but my younger self could still picture what I wanted so clearly. Lanterns hung in the trees, high tents of silk set up for us to feast under. All of my ladies in waiting would wear a blue dress in a different shade, lightest to darkest, until I would stand out the most in my dress of pure white as we all danced. I could almost laugh about it now, how silly it all was, if there was not a trace of bitterness about how far flat my childhood dreams had fell. I looked back on those years and realised how truly empty my head was, filled with nothing but fancy.

I had wanted, but I had expected it all to be given to me.

Petyr was the one to teach me that, what is not given, can always be taken.

The Vale can be taken. Winterfell, my home, can be taken. The more time I spent under Petyr's tutelage, the more I learned that there were always more than one means to an end.

But those were the big things. Gifts that hung heavy, like a weight around my neck, the chains being loyalty and trust and promise. The game of thrones was the big give and take, but what of the small things?

Dresses upon dresses, capes, gloves, trinkets, books, a gilt hand mirror, a letter set, fabrics from the Reach, lemons from Dorne...I could go on, he spoilt me rotten in idle finery. All of this money he has, yet I suppose he has never had one to shower it on. Until me. Until his daughter.

It was so easy to forget all that went on outside the gates of the moon. Hm. Perhaps easy is not the right word, since those thoughts tend to creep in when I least want them too.Wishful? It is so easy to wish I never had to think of the outside again? I don't know if I'm making sense. It's just that when Petyr calls me to his solar, and I see a parcel on his desk, and he gives me that smile, I would rather be drawn into his lap and see and know of nothing but what is in that parcel. I can forget for a moment. I forget for long moments these days. Here, at the Gates of the Moon, it is most like what I had always wanted. A court, a castle, a friend, and a prince to love and spoil me....except my prince is old, and calls himself my father.

Harry tried. Wether by his own merit, or by Lady Waynwoods coaching, I supposed he made an effort. His most recent gift had been a broach, a lovely flower shaped one made from polished pearls, inlayed in the middle of silver petals. 

Of course, it was only half a moon turn later that Petyr presented me with two different necklaces, one long pearl chain, and the other so covered in emeralds I thought that surely there would be a shortage of the stones in gull town, the place he'd told me he'd had it made.

I had told him how silly this was. What would a bastard girl be doing parading around in such fine jewels? But he had ignored my, admittedly weak, protests as he strung the chain around my neck and whispered into my ear that I was his bastard girl, and that made all the difference.

 

I could see what he was doing though. When Harry had gifted me a pair of fur trimmed gloves, Petyr had given me a full stole not that much later. I had once let slip that Myranda was getting a new dress from her father, and within days I was being fitted for another of my own, with shoes to match. This was the man who had presented me with a twelve foot tall lemon cake. He would not be out done by anyone.

I suppose that's why I was surprised the first time he denied me something.

“Father?” I spoke from my spot by the hearth. I had been stitching, willing myself to speak for the past half hour as Petyr sat writing letters. He was always writing letters.

“Hm?” Was his answer, as he dipped his quill in ink again.

“May I ask you for something?” I said rather boldly, as most of his gifts were given on his own terms.

This piqued his interest, as the scratching of quill on parchment stopped and he finally glanced up.

“Perhaps...that depends on what it is?”

I smiled as I got up and came over to him, being deliberately coy, hoping I had made him curious.

“It is nothing grand...” I teased “It won't even cost you any coins”

“Really now? Oh, well then I'm most interested. You know how I like to keep frugal”

That made me laugh as he pulled me to sit with him, his hand snaking around my waist. A position we were in so frequently these days I no longer questioned it. It was a comfort even.

“So, what is it that you're after? Something small, something big? Is it easily acquired, shall I enjoy giving it to you? Or are you being deliberately sweet, knowing that I wont?”

I pondered how to answer, enjoying that this had become a kind of guessing game.

“Well....It is a small thing..... and I suppose you may not be too keen on it, but it is definitely easily acquired” I said after a moment of thought, and now his brow furrows. 

“You are after something small, that I may not want to give you...but is easily given, regardless?” He wondered out loud, and it made me laugh to see him puzzle over something.

He regarded me, amusement in his smile “This isn't regarding Mya Stones little find this morning, is it?”

My own brow furrowed now “What? What of Mya Stone?”

“Oh...well, no, obviously it's not then” he tried to wave off, but I pawed at his chest.

“What is it, what has Mya found?” I pressed, the curiosity now turned back on me.

“No, it's nothing really, I just...heard that a litter of kittens had been whelped by one of the stable cats. I had a thought that maybe you would be asking for a little feral tom to be brought up to wreak havoc in the solar, but no matter, continue”

“Oh....well....I wouldn't mind a kitten-”

“I should not have said anything, just...tell me what it is you are really after, sweetling” he tried to hurry me along.

I shifted on his lap. I was nervous now that was finally going to ask and perhaps he could tell.

“It is...it's more of a question I want you to answer really....or not even that, it is something I want you to show me...” I trailed off, and he gave me quite the look indeed.

“Show you?” he echoed, and I nodded, turning a shade pink “Now....what could I show you, that is small, but I may not want to show you...”

He looked almost troubled, so I decided to be kind, and put him out his misery.

“Your scar” I came right out with it “I was hoping...well, I know the story, of course but...I was wondering if you could....”

My hand was on his chest, but when my eyes met his I saw how his expression had changed, and it silenced me. The fun had gone from our little guessing game, and his demeanor stiffened.

He tried to laugh lightheartedly, but I could tell how forced it was, as he took my hand away from the front of his doublet, and held it in his own. 

“...Now.... why would you want to see such an ugly thing as that?”

He looked at me and I felt sheepish, and shrugged “Because...because I am curious I suppose...”

“But you said you know the story? That doesn't surprise me, most people do. Split from navel to collarbone-”

I looked up in surprise “See, I didn't know that part. No one ever told me how big it was” my eyes wandered over the front of his clothes. All the way from here, to there, I thought, as my eyes wandered. Petyr shifted under me now.

“Yes. Big, and ugly, and unsightly. I hardly see why you would want to see it...it is hardly a gift”

His voice was rigid, as was his body. He no longer even had a hand on my waist, he had moved it to the arm of the chair.

“Well, no, maybe not, but I would still like to see it”

He was shaking his head now though “No” he said, most decidedly “No, I'm sorry sweetling, but there is no point to it. I see no reason why you should have to see such a...like I said. Big and ugly and unsightly”

“I don't mind if it's ugly. I bet I've seen uglier” I said, thinking of the hound and the mangled flesh of his face.

But there was no budging him “The answer is still no”

There was no pretending in his voice, he didn't even feign as if I wasn't bothering him at this point.

“Why does it bother you, so?” I pouted, hurt that he was now being cold toward me, when I thought my request quite reasonable “I won't make fun, you know I won't”

He was quiet for a moment, and he wouldn't look at me “I honestly, for the life of me, cannot think of one reason why you would want to see my scar, other than to perhaps run and tell Myranda or perhaps Harry, so that you amy quench some sort of perverse curiosity-”

“Petyr, no!” I cried, quite annoyed now. He had twisted it all up, that wasn't what it was about at all, and to insinuate that I was some sort of nosy gossip who would run her mouth about the castle, quote frankly, offended me, and I hope he saw that in my look.

“We are....we are close now, are we not?” I started, unsure of where I was going with my words. I was saying them as soon as I thought of them “People who are close know things about each other. All the important things. You know I am Sansa...you are the only one who knows that. I know of...we both know what we have done. It makes us all the more close, does it not?”

His hands were no longer on me, but I would not let go of him. My arms draped around his neck, forcing the affection on him, willing him to reciprocate. I would not be sent to bed with him mad at me, I would not.

“We are close...” he said gently “Of course we are... I had not thought a mangled line of flesh would inspire us to be closer, though. You have taken me by surprise with this, sweetling”

There, he called me sweetling. He could not be too upset. I pressed myself against him even closer, and praise, I felt his hand rise to the small of my back.

“You know, if I had a scar, I would show it to you” I murmured.

“Oh, would you?” The smallest of smiles found it's way back to his face “A nice thought, but I should think your skin is unmarred from head to toe...not a scratch on you”

At this his finger trailed slowly over the skin of my collarbone, down between my breasts, skimming the fabric of my bodice, and it made me tense, but not from apprehension.

“Yes...but I would if I did”

His mood seemed to have turned pleasant again, but it seems as though I lost the battle. Petyr gave me most things, but he wouldn't give me this.

“Perhaps one day you will see it. Perhaps” he made sure to say it twice after I had looked eager too quickly “But for now, off to bed with you. And you are not to ask me this again. I shall come to you”

“Two kittens” I said quickly as I stood, patting down my skirts.

“Two kittens?” he frowned.

“Yes. I am to have two of the kittens from the stables, and you shall let me keep them here in the solar with us, and you shan't complain about it. Otherwise I will ask you every night to see your scar until you are sick of me” I threatened, trying to look serious.

His smile was one of disbelief, but he was unmistakably amused as well.

“One kitten” he countered.

“Two” I insisted.

“Sansa-”

“Petyr” I met his challenging tone.

“....fine. Two kittens. But you are to keep them in your chamber and keep them fed yourself, and away from my-”

I gave him a quick kiss on the lips. A chaste peck that was enough to have him pause and meet it with a little more insistence. It lasted only a moment, but we drew back and I have to admit, I still looked more pleased than he did.

I had not gotten exactly what I had wanted this time, but I had gained something. 

And what is not given can always be taken, with more than one means to an end.

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of fluffy guys, but sorry not sorry.
> 
> After season5 episode 6 of the show...I needed to write something nice and harmless to improve my mood. So....kittens!
> 
> Will be continued, so expect another chapter....with kittens!


End file.
